Presence and gentleness in coaching with Anthony McCann

Written by Stuart Haden on July 9, 2014

Here are my reflections on the European Mentoring and Coaching Council’s (EMCC) research conference. I was delighted to attend Anthony McCann’s presentation where I was struck by his take on to coaching principles – presence and gentleness. I have also recorded a Skype interview with Anthony so if you want even more depth and please take a look at that session.

Anthony introduces two great made up words to add greater precision to what we understand presence to be. ‘Hereness’ and ‘withness’. In this short video (3:46) I go into more depth on both these concepts.

Then when Anthony described gentleness, his research recognised that many factors experiencing during coaching are correlated. For example, if you take in certainty and intensity if one increases then so does the other, and vice versa.